Living in your own London fog

The year 2012 in the United States was blistering hot. A seemingly endless drought took hold of Texas and the Midwest. Crops withered away to hard husks, and cattle by the thousands were quick-sold to slaughterhouses because they weren’t going to get any fatter chewing on hot dust.

March was the warmest March on record by far, and this caused 2012 to leap out way ahead of the pack. We had the warmest spring on record, the warmest July on record, the third warmest summer on record. All of these together helped 2012 maintain a huge lead throughout the year.

So it became the hottest year ever recorded. Nothing to brag about. Across the globe, 2012 did only a little better.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ranked 2012 the 10th-warmest on record, with an average temperature of 58.03 degrees (14.46 Celsius). It was the 36th consecutive year to exceed the 20th-century average of 57 degrees, according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina.

You see the trends. Hot, hotter and hottest.

There’s another trend making its way around the realm. This one comes from the disastrous world of politics, not science, or at least the respectable part of it. You’re probably aware of it by now. This is where some idiot gets himself caught in blanketing snow, or a February heat wave, and he pronounces global warming a grift. Mayor of London Boris Johnson takes a crack at it:

The snow on the flowerpot, since I have been staring, has got about an inch thicker. The barbecue is all but invisible. By my calculations, this is now the fifth year in a row that we have had an unusual amount of snow; and by unusual I mean snow of a kind that I don’t remember from my childhood: snow that comes one day, and then sticks around for a couple of days, followed by more.

. . I don’t think I have seen that before. I am all for theories about climate change, and would not for a moment dispute the wisdom or good intentions of the vast majority of scientists.

If Boris weren’t here to bury you in humble bullshit, he’d quit now. The vast majority of scientists do not dispute global warming, they’re only trying to figure out how exactly it’s happening. But Boris shrugs off his fear of disputations and gets to the point:

But I am also an empiricist; and I observe that something appears to be up with our winter weather, and to call it “warming” is obviously to strain the language.

There we have it, another conservative clown yukking it up for the science illiterates. Boris assures everybody that this planetary disaster isn’t real. Also, any of them can get a better grip on global warming than all of thousands of eminent scientists by staring at their flowerpots. That’s how he did it, and he runs the capital.

I merely observe that there are at least some other reputable scientists who say that it is complete tosh, or at least that there is no evidence to support it.

If you’ll take your eyes off the barbecue, Boris. Hotter temperatures drive more water into the atmosphere. Heavier snows in London are exactly what scientists expect.

6 thoughts Living in your own London fog

One’s initial response might be to quote the Honourable Mr. Boris Johnson’s compatriot Lord Acton: “There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men”.

However, there is something else afoot in Mr. Boris Johnson’s assertion of global warming falsehoods. In 2008, he wrote a column in The Telegraph strongly supporting Mr. Barack Hussein Obama’s bid to become president of the US of A:

On his father’s side, Johnson is a great-grandson of Ali Kemal Bey, a liberal Turkish journalist and the Interior Minister in the government of Damat Ferid Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.

Furthermore, Mr. Boris Johnson has tried to recruit coverts to Islam:

I urge people, particularly during Ramadan, to find out more about Islam, increase your understanding and learning, even fast for a day with your Muslim neighbour and break your fast at the local mosque. I would be very surprised if you didn’t find that you share more in common than you thought.

I think it is reasonable to suspect that Mr. Boris Johnson’s playful comments on global warming, along with his Trumpesque hairdo, are tricks to confuse brainless conservative sheep into committing themselves to allegiance to him, in preparation for the old bait and switch, when he and Mr. Barack Obama impose Sharia Law in a coordinated operation in their respective nations.

This seems just as reasonable an explanation as the supposition that Mr. Boris Johnson is an ignorant dipshit, which seems not to be the case, judging by the opening of his column endorsing Mr. Barack Obama in 2008:

There are all sorts of reasons for hoping that Barack Hussein Obama will be the next president of the United States. He seems highly intelligent. He has an air of courtesy and sincerity. Unlike the current occupant of the White House, he has no difficulty in orally extemporising a series of grammatical English sentences, each containing a main verb.

Thus, I think we can forgive Mr. Boris Johnson’s ludicrous comments about global warming as smirking mockery of the very people whom he and Mr. Barack Obama will soon quarantine in Islamic reeducation camps. Mark my words and arm yourself well, dear reader.

Addendum. If the kind reader thinks that I am pulling their leg, so to speak, with speculations about Mr. Boris Johnson as groundless as his musings about global warming as a playful demonstration of the conservative practice of just making shit up while still sounding somewhat educated, then think again:

Pro-tip: Members of, or sympathizers with, right wing political organizations often say that they believe stupid shit that they know is not true as a tribal identifier, a latter day Sibboleth*.

* Gilead then cut Ephraim off from the fords of the Jordan, and whenever Ephraimite fugitives said, ‘Let me cross,’ the men of Gilead would ask, ‘Are you an Ephraimite?’ If he said, ‘No,’ they then said, ‘Very well, say “Shibboleth” (שבלת).’ If anyone said, “Sibboleth” (סבלת), because he could not pronounce it, then they would seize him and kill him by the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell on this occasion. —Judges 12:5–6, NJB

Well, they were both Tribes of Israel on Team Jehovah, different branches of the House of Joseph, so it’s an intramural squabble with no clear “good guy”, basically extended sibling rivalry, as the founders of both Tribes were sons of Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh). In this particular story the Ephraimites were disappointed that the Gileadites didn’t invite them to help slaughter Ammonites, and the Gileadites were all “Now you want to slaughter Ammonites but where were you when we asked you earlier????”. The Ammonites were the descendants of the offspring of the sordid incident when Lot’s daughters got him drunk and date-raped him on two consecutive nights after the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it appears that they had a falling-out with Jehovah somewhere along the line.

Here’s the more complete Ephraimite/Gileadite controversy in Jehovah’s own Words:

Judges 12 King James Version (KJV)

1 And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together, and went northward, and said unto Jephthah, Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with thee? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire.

2 And Jephthah said unto them, I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon; and when I called you, ye delivered me not out of their hands.

3 And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and the Lord delivered them into my hand: wherefore then are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me?

4 Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites.

5 And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay;

6 Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

7 And Jephthah judged Israel six years. Then died Jephthah the Gileadite, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.

Latter Day Ephraimites include the Latter Day Saints, and the United Kingdom:

Several western Christian groups, in particular those of the Church of God in Christ, claim that the whole UK is the direct descendant of Ephraim, and that the whole USA is the direct descendant of Manasseh, based on the interpretation that Jacob had said these two tribes would become the most supreme nations in the world. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes a significant portion of its members to be descended from Ephraim, arguing that they are charged with restoring the lost tribes in the latter days as prophesied by Isaiah, and that the tribes of both Ephraim and Judah will play important leadership roles for covenant Israel in the last days; some believe that this would be the fulfilment of part of the Blessing of Jacob, where it states that Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall (Genesis 49:22, interpreting the “wall” as the ocean.

Gileadites included the House of Manasseh (Ephraim’s brother; both were Joseph’s kids), so current descendants are the USA and a few smaller surviving tribes scattered hither and yon:

The Samaritans claims that some of their adherents are descended from this tribe. Further afield, in northeast India, the Kuki-Chin-Mizo Jews claim descent from Manasseh, and call themselves Bnei Menashe; in 2005 Shlomo Amar, Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, announced that he regarded this claim to be true, which under the Law of Return allows them to migrate to Israel, as long as they formally convert to Judaism in accordance with halachic standards. The Isars (Bnei Makir) of East Java are another ethno-religious group claiming descent from Manasseh, but unlike the Bnei Menashe of India, they neither seek aliyah to Israel at the present time nor desire to become “Jewish”.